Lone Wolf Acquires Instanet Solutions

The Transaction Management software space is one of the most competitive categories of real estate technology. Today, Lone Wolf, one of the leading providers of broker accounting and management solutions, announced its acquisition of fellow Canadian company, Instanet Solutions. This is the second transaction management software acquisition in the past two weeks. Fidelity National Financial, Inc. recently acquired a majority interest in Skyslope, another highly regarded transaction management solution.

Instanet provides Transaction Desk to over 500,000 REALTORS® through its partnership with MLSs and Associations across North America. Transaction Desk is a transaction management solution comprised of several cloud-based products for document and file management, electronic forms, eSignatures, and file review and compliance. In the last year alone, real estate professionals completed ten million signings through Instanet, while also submitting over 22 million documents and creating 31 million forms. Lone Wolf currently provides services to 10,000 brokerages offices serving 180,000 REALTORS®.

The relationship between Lone Wolf and Instanet started as an integration partnership in 2014.

The vision for an end to end broker solution has been in the works at Lone Wolf for several years. We at WAV Group have been talking about this concept since 2010. Here’s a white paper we published in November 2010 entitled Brokerage Real Estate Technology, an Industry in Need of a Backbone.

We wrote a follow-up piece in June, 2011 further articulating the vision for a broker-centric technology company seamlessly connecting to MLS data and delivering all of the functionality needed by a brokerage to secure new listings, effectively promote listings and then efficiently process transactions.

It’s great to see the vision of a true end to end solution for brokerages coming to life.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Patrick Arkeveld, CEO of Lone Wolf Technologies about the acquisitions implications for MLSs/Associations

MLSs and Associations will remain a KEY priority.

Given that Lone Wolf is clearly a broker-centric company we wanted to understand whether MLSs and Associations will remain a key priority. Lone Wolf was clear to reinforce to us that MLSs and Associations will remain a key priority. They told us: “Instanet’s MLS customers are a major factor of the company’s success, and we plan to continue to invest in those relationships and the MLS space to enhance our value to the industry as a whole”.

Corelogic/Instanet Partnership to Remain Unchanged

We were first interested to find out what changes, if any that Instanet’s MLS customers will experience. Patrick told us that the current distribution partnership with CoreLogic will remain unchanged. Lone Wolf will invest in ongoing innovations on the Transaction Desk platform.

MLS Integrations will be enhanced

Transaction Desk enjoys significant adoption and usage, due in large part to its seamless integration to the listing detail pages of MLS systems. We wanted to find out if that functionality will remain in place. Lone Wolf told us “it’s one of the greatest benefits and most appealing aspects of the Instanet platform. Over time, we plan to enhance the value that this integration brings. While we’re still planning our long-term integration strategy, we will fully leverage this benefit.”

Is this acquisition an UPSTREAM-killer?

Instanet has enjoyed UPSTREAM-like abilities which allow agents and brokers to input their listings directly into the MLS system. This is one of the key reasons why brokers prefer Instanet solutions over other transaction management systems. We wanted to know how much this functionality drove interest in Transaction Desk. “Instanet has had the functionality to upload listings to the MLS for some time, prior to our acquisition. We are not changing that functionality. We are keenly following the Upstream initiative and will continue to explore it in the coming months.”

Implications for Brokers

Lone Wolf purchased Transaction Desk to expand the scope of its end to end solution. According to Mr. Arkevald, “This acquisition will provide our Broker clients with the benefits of a true enterprise solution for real estate, through a fully integrated transaction management-to-accounting solution. This solution will automate workflow and make the lives easier of everyone in the brokerage “

Lone Wolf will Continue to Support Integrations with Competing Transaction Management Solutions

Lone Wolf told us they will continue to support integrations with other Transaction Management providers that brokers have chosen to work with like Docusign, SkySlope, dotLoop and others.

Here’s the Full Press Release:

Cambridge, ON—October 16, 2017—Lone Wolf Technologies, the North American leader in residential real estate software, today announced the acquisition of Instanet Solutions, a leading provider of transaction management, electronic forms and eSignature solutions for the real estate industry.

With this acquisition, Lone Wolf supplements its suite of technology products, proven to help real estate brokerages improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs and boost revenue. The addition of Instanet to Lone Wolf paves the way for the industry’s first fully integrated end-to-end solution with transaction management, electronic forms, eSignatures, MLS listing upload, back office accounting and CRM.

“Instanet is an industry leader in transaction management solutions for the residential real estate market. The company has over 500,000 licensed users, as well as a tight integration with some of the largest MLSs in North America.” said Patrick Arkeveld, CEO of Lone Wolf Technologies. “The acquisition strengthens our stance in this market by providing our clients with a unique end-to-end solution to drive all of their operations. A fully integrated transaction management-to-back office accounting solution is exactly what our clients are looking for, as it will radically improve the day-to-day experience of running and working in a real estate brokerage.”

Instanet is the provider of TransactionDesk®, Lone Wolf will be investing millions of dollars into the combined Lone Wolf and Instanet platforms— enhancing the product suite and integrating the solutions—to provide brokerages with a single system to manage their businesses effectively.

“We are thrilled to join an amazing technology provider who, like us, has a long history of providing best-in-class solutions to the real estate industry,” said Martin Scrocchi, Founder, President and CEO of Instanet Solutions. “This is fantastic news for our customers and the real estate industry at large. Like Instanet, Lone Wolf offers comprehensive, time-saving tools that enable real estate brokerages to take charge of their operations. Together, we can make our client’s experience even better through the industry’s first transaction management-to-back office accounting solution.”

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About Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies
Lone Wolf Technologies, a Vista company, is the North American leader in residential real estate software, with products in over 10,000 offices across Canada and the U.S. The company offers an ecosystem of technology products, including software for back office, transaction management, front office, and web, as well as professional services and 3rd party integrations. Each element of this ecosystem enables brokerages and agents to operate more efficiently, reduce costs, and increase opportunities for profitability. Lone Wolf’s head office is located in Cambridge, ON, with additional offices in Dallas, TX, Langley, BC, and Las Vegas, NV. For more information, please visit lwolf.com.

About Instanet Solutions
Instanet Solutions is a leading provider of real estate technology with over 500,000+ licensed, paid user accounts of their various real estate focused products – Authentisign®, TransactionDesk®, InstanetForms®, DocBox® and InstanetFax®. Instanet Solutions began delivering residential real estate technology in 1991. Further information about Instanet Solutions and its products is available at http://www.instanetsolutions.com.